Titans

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘You’ll find it hard to accept. I did.’ Faith shrugged. ‘Or not. You were stuck in time for fifty years… When we came up from the bunker, we discovered that there were people who could do things which… aren’t normal.’

  ‘Like telekinesis?’ Nick asked. ‘Or miraculously creating parts for damaged equipment from thin air?’

  Faith’s eyes narrowed. ‘Some of you were affected?’

  ‘I can make parts I need for repairs just appear,’ Sophia said. She was blushing, though she had nothing to be embarrassed about.

  ‘I can lift things with my mind,’ Joe added.

  ‘That will destroy a cherished scientific theory,’ Faith said. ‘They were sure that the power source for Titans was that standing wave in the core, but that couldn’t power you two out at Saturn.’

  ‘Titans?’ Mercy asked.

  ‘The name was partially another tribute to you people, but it describes them… us well enough. People with, well, supernatural powers. Some were created in the Wave, like you, some walk out of Wave Storms changed. That energy that kills people doesn’t affect everyone the same way. Some walk away unaffected. A few. Most die if exposed to a storm without cover, or they end up mutated in some way. That was what killed my mother. I was in the same storm and I came out able to predict when a storm is going to hit, float small objects, and accelerate healing in people near me.’ She nodded toward Sophia. ‘You are what we call a Maker. Makers are very valuable and not very common. Healers, like me, are even less common, though I’m not a very good one, and my security detail has a collective fit whenever I try to use what I can do. Not all Titans are the same. The stronger ones live longer, heal faster, and they can even do without food, water, and air. They’re hard to kill, which makes them dangerous because some of them are walking engines of destruction. And most of them are on the other side.’

  Faith held up a hand to forestall the obvious question. ‘We have opponents. We had to take this island from a gang calling themselves the Damned Ones. They’ve been trying to take it back ever since. Their leader, who calls himself The Damned, is a monster. He murdered my father, which is why I ended up in this chair. Well, that and that no one else wanted the job. Technically, I’m an elected official, but no one ever runs against me.’

  ‘When you say monster…’ Mercy began.

  ‘I mean a monster. A nine-foot-tall brute with skin like something you’d see on a zombie and a face not even a mother could love. He’s not even as bad as it gets in the looks department. Not everyone lucks out when it comes to how Titan powers express themselves. The Damned is ugly, practically invulnerable, and stupidly strong, but he looks more or less human. Some of them have mutated in ways…’ The president shuddered. ‘And it’s not just humans. There are creatures out there you’d think have crawled out of a drug addict’s nightmares. We hold land to the north of Manhattan Island. Some of it is used for what farming we can do despite the storms, but there’s a buffer zone we maintain just to keep the monsters away from where we live. What I’m saying, and not doing a very good job of it, is that the world has gone to shit and it isn’t getting better. You can stay here. We’re not short on housing, and four more mouths to feed won’t strain our resources. Everything’s rationed. I think you all have talents we can use, so I’m certainly not going to turn you away. But you might have been better off staying in orbit around Saturn.’

  ~~~

  The president had found them two apartments in a massive building on West Broadway in Tribeca. Or it had been Tribeca; now it was part of the Lower Manhattan District which bordered the Capitol District, once known mostly as the Battery. Importantly, it was not far from Franklin Street Shelter, which had formerly been a subway station.

  The building was basically sound, even if it had seen better days. The paintwork in the corridors needed renewing and no one was making paint to do that with. The carpets in the corridors needed replacing, but no one was making new carpet. The stylish doors of yesterday had been replaced with iron ones, not to keep the storms out but for security. All the ground-floor windows were covered in iron plates.

  By common consent, at least as far as the women were concerned, Mercy and Sophia were sharing one apartment, and Nick and Joe were in the other. It was not like they were going to be sleeping in the same beds. They did not have furniture of any kind to sleep on, but they had bedding in the form of some military-issue sleeping bags. The apartments were bare and a bit dusty, but they were better than sleeping in a park. Mercy had considered using Pallas, but that was currently being transported to somewhere undercover.

  They also had meal packs from Pallas to provide food. Mercy had suggested Faith use them for additional supplies for the enclave, but Faith had pointed out that it would make no real difference and that the packs represented currency. Money was a thing of the past. If you wanted something and did not have it, you made it, found it, or bartered for it. The packs were designed to self-heat, so that was what was being eaten on their first night back on Earth. And the meal was going to happen in the boys’ apartment, so Mercy and Sophia were heading out of theirs after setting up their camping gear.

  ‘Do you think we can trust Richard?’ Sophia asked as Mercy opened the apartment’s door. It had locks, good ones. That was a definite plus.

  ‘I think… probably,’ Mercy replied. ‘I think she wants your talent. She said Makers were valuable and rare. I think she wants you to want to be here so you can fix things. But I also think she was being pretty genuine about us being welcome here.’ Mercy stepped out into the corridor and found herself looking at a slim, wiry sort of man with a large, pointy nose. He also had a pistol which he was pointing at her.

  ‘I trust your judgement,’ Sophia said from behind her. ‘Anyway, we need some sort of help to get by in this– Hey!’

  Mercy turned her head to see that Sophia had partially emerged from the apartment only to be grabbed by a much larger, but apparently unarmed, man. He pulled her by one wrist but switched to more of a grapple as she was pulled off balance against his chest. ‘What do you want?’ Mercy asked, turning back to the thug with the gun.

  ‘Your friend,’ the gunman said. ‘Like you said, Makers are–’

  There was a loud grunt from behind Mercy, followed by the sound of someone heavy landing on the corridor floor. Mercy was not sure what had just happened, but she knew what was happening in front of her. The gunman raised his arm, aiming past Mercy. He said, ‘Hey! Come quietly or–’ and then Mercy reached out a hand toward him, aiming to grab his gun. A beam of blue light emerged from her palm and impaled him through the chest. His eyes widened before rolling back in his head, and he slid off the swordlike beam to collapse onto the floor.

  Mercy turned, the blaze of blue still glowing, to see the bigger thug struggling to his feet and holding his ribs over his right side. Sophia was not as weak as she might possibly look, but she was not normally strong enough to do major damage to a man built like this one. The thug’s eyes fell upon Mercy and then his fallen compatriot. Fear – no, terror – burst across his face.

  ‘Shit! You’re one too? Shit! I’m sorry. I didn’t– Shit!’ Then he was scrambling backward, then running away from the two women.

  ‘Your eyes are glowing,’ Sophia said. ‘There’s like veins of glowing light over your face and neck. Blue. Like that…’ She frowned. ‘Are you a closet Star Wars fan.’

  The blue sword vanished just as it had come. ‘No! That was not a lightsabre.’ She turned and dropped to one knee beside the fallen thug. Reaching down, she put two fingers against his throat. ‘He’s still alive. How do we call an ambulance around here?’

  ‘I don’t think they have ambulances. Richard said there were security patrols. Maybe if we went outside we could find one.’

  Mercy sighed. She would have been more bothered about the delayed meal if she had felt even vaguely hungry, but… ‘You go to the boys’ apartment. I’ll go see if I can find some cops.’

  ~~~

&nbs
p; ‘We call them the Organisation,’ Faith said. ‘If they have a real name, we don’t know what it is. When we manage to get one into interrogation, they refer to it as “the Organisation,” or “our Organisation.” They’re very loyal.’

  ‘Organised crime then,’ Mercy replied, looking down at the body she had made. ‘What do they want with Sophia?’

  ‘She’s a Maker. She can get things working that don’t work. In this world, that makes her a valuable asset. They may try again. You said that you had developed no abilities.’

  ‘Apparently, I was wrong. I guess I never needed to kill anyone on the way here from Titan.’ There was a sour note in Mercy’s voice.

  ‘Consider it useful. Sophia is going to need a bodyguard. A beam of blue light, you said. And it seems to have disintegrated where it made contact.’

  ‘Looks like it.’ There was a hole in the body and not enough blood. The man had not been alive by the time Mercy had returned with security officers. They had taken one look at the man and decided not to press charges, which was nice. Then Faith had turned up.

  ‘That’s one I’ve not heard of.’

  ‘So, I’m uniquely destructive. That’s nice.’

  Faith looked at her. ‘Somehow, I would have expected an ex-marine to be more sanguine about death.’

  ‘I was a pilot.’ Mercy shook her head. ‘I’m not concerned about killing someone, I’m concerned about how I did it.’

  ‘You come to terms with it, or you go insane. I don’t see you as the kind to go mad. You’d have done it already stuck on a spaceship in the ass of the solar system for months.’

  ‘I was human then.’

  ‘I don’t think of myself as inhuman.’

  Mercy shrugged. ‘Can you disintegrate flesh with a beam of blue light?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Talk to me when you can.’

  ~~~

  ‘You don’t seem too happy about discovering you’ve changed.’ It was dark in the room Mercy and Sophia were using as a bedroom. They were in their sleeping bags and keeping their voices low, even though there was no real reason to. Still, the city was as quiet as a grave after dark and Sophia’s comment was easy to hear.

  ‘I’m not…’ Mercy paused, considering her words. ‘I’m not so much bothered about being a Titan as bothered about what I can do.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Joe can lift things with his mind. You can make spare parts out of thin air. I can destroy things. People. I can kill. You create, I do the opposite.’

  ‘You saved me from being enslaved by criminals. I don’t think that is destructive. Not exactly.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. You dropped that big guy pretty hard. Something else you can do?’

  ‘I– Sometimes, when I need to be, I’m stronger now. I can lift things I couldn’t. I suppose I can hit harder. But only sometimes. Maybe fifty percent of the times I try, I can do it.’

  ‘Some sort of force generation ability assisting your muscles. Okay. Maybe I should try that. I’m not a natural killer, Sophia. I was a pilot in the Marines. I did the combat training, I can kill when I have to or I’m told to, but I don’t like it. I think people who do shouldn’t be in the military. Of course, people who can’t kill shouldn’t either, but that’s because they’ll end up driving themselves nuts.’

  ‘That’s reasonable.’ Sophia was silent for a second. ‘I think you should stick with it. This ability came out because you needed it. Perhaps other things will appear when you need them. Less destructive things. And, in the meantime, I am happy there is someone around to keep the gangsters off me.’

  ‘I’d have done that anyway.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  27th April.

  Nick watched Joe’s efforts with a combination of bemusement and intrigue. The pilot was attempting, with an almost complete lack of success, to lift himself into the air using his telekinetic ability. It was objectively funny, even if Joe could not see it. He stood there with clenched fists and a look of intense concentration on his reddened face, not moving even a little.

  ‘Have you considered that you may not be strong enough to do this?’ Nick asked after it seemed like an intervention was required before Joe burst a blood vessel.

  ‘You don’t know until you try,’ Joe replied.

  ‘You’ve tried, and now you know. Perhaps an alternate focus would help.’

  Joe stopped straining his brain and frowned at the biologist. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s my conjecture that you are manipulating gravity, creating a localised gravitational field to move the objects and, now that we are within a real gravitational field, manipulating local gravity to reduce its effect on your target.’

  ‘Okay…’

  ‘Perhaps you should think more in terms of reducing the gravitational effect on your body. Think of flying rather than lifting. Imagine that gravity does not affect you.’ Nick shrugged. ‘I have no idea how this works. It’s fascinating, but I don’t understand how any of this could possibly work. However, it would seem that your attitude and the mental picture you have of what you are doing should affect the outcome. Want to fly. I’m sure it’s something you’ve always wanted to be able– And there we have it.’

  Joe was grinning like a maniac. He was also floating about a foot above the apartment floor, hovering without the slightest appearance of effort. He turned his grin upon Nick. ‘You’re a genius.’

  ‘I won’t argue.’

  ‘I have to try this outside.’

  ~~~

  ‘What are we waiting for, Nick?’ Mercy asked as she trooped out of the building with Sophia and Nick.

  ‘Joe,’ Nick replied.

  ‘Why didn’t we just talk to him in your apartment?’

  ‘Joe is not in our apartment. He should be returning shortly.’

  ‘You’re being obtuse.’

  ‘I am. I agree with your assessment. However, I have been sworn to secrecy.’

  Mercy scowled at him, but he was smiling too much so he was unlikely to relent. In truth, her mood had not improved after a night’s sleep and she did not want to take that out on him or Joe.

  And then something shot past them at considerable speed about twenty feet above the road. ‘What the fuck?’ Mercy said, turning to follow the shape as it looped upward, turned back, and slowed down. ‘Is that… That’s Joe! He’s–’

  ‘Flying,’ Sophia said. ‘He’s flying. That has to be the happiest Frenchman anywhere on the planet.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Joe dropped into a landing – which was going to need practice it seemed – stumbled, righted himself, and spread his arms, grinning broadly. ‘I can fly!’

  ‘We noticed,’ Mercy said sourly. She grimaced and shook her head. ‘That’s great, Joe. I’m happy for you. Really. This has to be a dream come true.’

  ‘It is. You seem… conflicted.’

  ‘Mercy is bothered that her power is destructive,’ Sophia said. ‘I can create, you can fly, she… cannot.’

  ‘Ah,’ Joe said, his mood diminished at least a little.

  ‘Joe discovered his ability by trying,’ Nick said. ‘He was trying to lift himself with his telekinesis.’

  ‘And failing,’ Joe added.

  ‘And failing, so I suggested a realignment of thought. I suggested that he think of flying rather than lifting. As you can see, that worked. Perhaps, Mercy, you should attempt to think of things you would like to do. Perhaps you can also fly. Perhaps you have some other talent you would find more palatable.’

  ‘I suppose it’s worth a try.’ Mercy returned her attention to Joe. ‘So, what could you see up there? Any idea how fast you were going?’

  Joe smiled again. ‘Let’s go inside and I’ll tell you what I know.’

  ~~~

  ‘If your timings are correct,’ Nick said, ‘you were reaching close to two-hundred miles per hour. Over three hundred kilometres per hour certainly. Not exactly as fast as a jet, but respectable for a man in
a jumpsuit.’

  Sophia giggled. ‘We should get him a cape.’

  ‘And who says Germans have no sense of humour?’ Joe said. ‘No capes. Though I think I could pull off a Lycra body stocking well.’

  ‘If you could find one,’ Mercy said. ‘From what we’ve seen, clothing manufacturing has gone back a century or more.’

  ‘True,’ Sophia said. ‘I hope we can find some different clothes soon, however. I’d like a change of underwear to start with.’

  ‘Hm. So, you got out as far north as this NYA goes,’ Mercy said to Joe.

  ‘Out to the buffer zone the president mentioned. That seems to be a band maybe four kilometres wide, call it two and a half miles, around the White Plains area. It seems to have seen action. The ground is broken and irregular. No buildings are standing but I saw barbed wire, foxholes, and craters. There are trenches, like in the First World War. A wire fence marks the southern edge of the zone, then there are fields south of it down to the Harlem River.’

  ‘They’ve flattened everything north of the river for farming?’

  ‘There were buildings. I assume for the workers and to house whatever machinery they have available. There were more military-looking structures nearer to the fence too. Then, on Manhattan Island itself, the buildings were more intact. From Harlem up, I think they were being used for something other than housing. There were few people about there and all the windows have been closed over with concrete. Another thing. I noticed extensive use of power cables slung between the buildings. Clearly not the normal power distribution grid. And there are gaps in the buildings suggesting that there has been fighting here too. Nothing, I think, too recent. Perhaps when the NYA captured this area from the Damned Ones.’

  ‘Did you see any shops?’ Sophia asked.

  ‘Yes. I have no idea whether any of them sell anything. There is only so much to be seen from three hundred metres.’

  ‘I guess we’ll have to ask someone.’

  ‘We’ll talk to President Richard,’ Mercy said. ‘We should probably keep her informed about current events.’ Mercy gave Joe a look. ‘She seems interested. I want to discuss armaments anyway.’